Good morning sir

When I go to office every morning, office colleagues wish me ‘good morning sir’. I also wish them back, ‘good morning’. When I meet my superiors, I wish them ‘good morning madam’ or ‘good morning sir’. And they wish me back, ‘good morning’. What is there in this to warrant a blog post?

It is not a weighty issue but what I observed is that some class II and III colleagues would greet me as sir since I am a class I person, but some class IV staffs like peons would greet me ‘good morning’. There is no ‘sir’. I would let things pass. 

Now, if the issue is that I want to be called ‘sir’ by all those who are below me by rank, I wouldn’t have taken the route of writing a blog post because it is less likely reach the intended audience. It is not an issue to wish a class II or III person as sir/madam. Due to seniority, we may wish a colleague as sir/madam. Or when we are visiting another office and meeting an equal rank person or lower, we may greet her as madam out of respect for her chair/office.

I was wondering why is it hard for those grade IV staffs to greet me as sir when they are greeting their superiors (grade I, II, III colleagues) as sir/madam. I can think of two reasons. One reason could be due to age factor. Maybe I look too young to be greeted as sir. That is funny because I look older than my age so that higher secondary students ‘mistakenly’ call me uncle. And they would certainly greet someone of my age as sir if, say, that someone is a very high ranking government officer. I’m not contesting ranks here but considering age as a factor. The other reason could be the fact that I am a contractual employee. This will make sense if one is versed with the common perception of people towards regular and contractual workers. I have been working for the last 5 years in the government sector. But many people speak straight at me like I don’t have a ‘real’ job yet because I am contractual. I have been asked again and again if there is any chance at all for my job to become regular. One more reason some may assume is that those grade IV employees are ignorant and don’t know how to respect people. But that doesn’t seem to explain the issue because they are very respectful to some people. The fact here is that the respect shown is ‘selective’. Of the reasons, the second one (being contractual) seems to be the most plausible explanation for the phenomenon of unique good morning greetings in office.